Western Somali Liberation Front memo sent to the Constituent Conference of the Union of Palestinian Engineers held from 6th to 11th December 1973

[Memorandum from the United Liberation Front of Western Somali; Baghdad, Arabic, pp 1-8]

Esteemed chairman of the conference; Honored delegation members; Respected members of Arab and international liberation offices:

Greetings of the revolution and the struggle.

The United Liberation Front of Western Somali submits this memorandum, which lists the facts and the course of events in Somalia, which has been occupied by the criminal Zionist-Ethiopian aggression, and shows the extent to which they are connected with the events of the cause of the Palestinian people and of the brave Palestinian revolution.

The tragedy of our people at the hand of the Zionist-Ethiopian gang is indeed a tragedy shared by the displaced, Palestinian people. The international political fares, cooked up behind diplomatic screens, are attempts to bargain with the rights of the Palestinian people. Today, the rejection by the Palestinian revolution from within that revolution is responsible for revealing all these plots and games.

The occupied Somali land is beset by plots against its cause by border schemes and bargaining’s, by which the Ethiopian gang is attempting to show that they are suppressing the revolution. However, the Somali revolution, under the leadership of the United Liberation Front of Western Somali, has sworn that it will bear the responsibility of the trust of a displaced and afflicted people. The revolution knows only the right of the people to their land and their holy honor.

We hope to convey these sad facts about our cause in occupied Western Somali to this revolutionary conference and that you will include them in your revolutionary decisions. The enemy is the same, Israeli or Ethiopian, only his name differs.

Events of the Recent Arab War from the Ethiopian Aspect

The events of the fourth war in the Middle East, and before that, of the African Unity Conference and the activity of the African states relative to the Arab cause and to the Palestinian revolution, all put new markings on the political map of this continent. The first important and historical event by the African liberation movement is the victory of the revolutionary movement in Guinea- Bissau, the formation of their free republic, and their joining the international revolutionary group.

This told the world that when peoples wish to achieve their will they press forward on the path of struggle no matter what the cost nor how long the road. The people’s belief in revolutionary freedom through blood and tears is an indication of the freedom sacred to these peoples for the complete achievement of their goals against the attempts of the enemy to play a tactical game of political plans and maneuvers aimed at tricking revolutions, at smothering them, and at exposing them to doubt and isolation from the world.

We in Western Somali, by virtue of our position on the revolutionary African continent and by our existence as a close link to the Arab world, as a branch of it, we affect and are affected by all its political and economic conditions. This important characteristic makes us put before you a body of important items about our goals and about the extent of our suffering under the Zionist-Ethiopian occupation, which operates by force of arms and by destruction.

This is so we can reveal to you the facts about the misfortunes of our people, their bravery, their sacrifices, and their brave stand in the face of aggressive attempts made by the agent government of Haile Selassie to exhaust the nationalist signs of life of our people in their occupied land.

The movement to uncover the truth about the Addis Ababa regime, made during and after the recent African summit conference by a number of African governments, confirmed that this reactionary, theocratic regime is a center of imperialist maneuvers, an espionage base, an observation and relay station against the African liberation movements, a gathering place for European mercenaries, and an awesome arsenal of the American military stockpile. It is a port for the hostile American Sixth Fleet.

When these facts on the regime of Haile Selassie became clear, the delegations of these governments asked that the headquarters of the OAU be transferred from Addis Ababa to a free African capital. It was proven that Addis Ababa was an outpost to falsify African unity and was playing an espionage role as indicated by the presence of American spy satellite bases at Kagnew Station and by considering that the port of Massawa was a station and anchorage for the American Sixth Fleet.

Haile Selassie attempted to toy with the destiny of “French” Somali and the port of Djibouti in cooperation with the enemy French occupation which inflicted terrorism and destruction on the people of this important strategic area, an area which controls the entrances to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean.

The close cooperation between Ethiopia and the attempts at French exploitation to tear apart the unity of the people of this area by tribal factionalism and by obliterating the signs of nationalism of the Somali nation in cooperation with the criminal government of Haile Selassie was a joint attempt to bargain over the port of Djibouti, which is Ethiopia’s only exit to the outside world.

Today, Haile Selassie acts in accordance with plans and tactics drawn up for him by the American government and the hostile, racist Pretoria government. These facts, in combination with the truth, have torn away the mask behind which Haile Selassie hid, a man thirsty for the blood of the people of the area and a man who attaches little importance to even the simplest principles of human freedom and dignity.

_{[Passage discussing Ethiopia’s collaboration with Israel and the US, detailing coordination along the Red Sea, the use of Eritrean islands as Israeli posts, and Ethiopia’s role in aiding the Arab–Israeli conflict not recorded]}

The Results of the War on Africa

The results of the recent October war confirm to the world, to peoples in general, and to Africa in particular, the hostile, imperialistic role of Israel and the extent of her disdain for the simplest of international customs, values, and human morals. It confirms to all these peoples that Israel is no more than a malicious, racist gang operating through extermination, destruction, and aggression. It is the one who supplies the racist governments in Africa, like the government in Pretoria and Johannesburg and it supports Portugal and Belgium. Its cooperative role in Ethiopia with Haile Selassie is sure proof of his activity and the extent to which a hostile, expansionist, imperialist spirit rules its activities.

The Israeli enclaves on the African continent were swept away as a result of the attention of the African masses when a plot was revealed to do away with their human and cultural characteristics. So the people began to pressure their governments and the revolutionary liberation movements in Africa to escalate their blows against the interests of racist, Israeli aggression. The role of Israel, its interests, and the danger of its presence in the African area are all revealed before the African peoples. The valiant role of Uganda in laying bare the Zionist, Israeli plan in Africa and in its steadfastness in the face of mercenary attacks have proved what Israel and Zionism mean to the African world.

But, what was the position of the agent Haile Selassie? The position of the Tribe of Judah, the criminal Haile Selassie, due to his loyalty to Tel Aviv and Washington, was one of indecision and doubt as this senile agent wanted to keep Israeli interests in Africa and he wanted to forego the movement by the African states to expel Israel so he could then determine his position on this issue.

So, after more than 11 African states severed their relations with Israel, the reactionary Haile Selassie government the leader of African unity stirred itself to decide, in a very plastic manner, to cut only its diplomatic relations with Israel while keeping all the Israeli interests in the area. It gave the world proof of this when it was decided to close one of the Zionist, Hebrew schools in Addis Ababa!!!!

The United Liberation Front of Occupied Western Somali is revealing the rhetorical roles in the criminal Haile Selassie’s stage play. We call upon the Arab nationalist movement, led by the fighting Palestinian revolution, to assume its part in revealing all the facts of this Zionist, agent abyss in the activities of the Ethiopian government. There are dramatic, political attempts behind which Israel plays an important role in guiding the curtain ropes to maintain the thrones and seats of power of these emaciated governments.

What Is the Part of the Occupied Somali Coast In the Barbarity of Haile Selassie and His Military Crimes?

The thing that the regime of Haile Selassie fears most is that the revolution of Western Somali will find solidarity with the world revolution against imperialism. The revolution, under the leadership of the United Liberation Front of Western Somali, has the power and ability to expose the truth about Haile Selassie, about the extent of his patronage to Israel, and about his suspected connections with the racist governments of Africa. Out of this fear complex and in keeping with cooperation planned with Israel and the imperialist states, this agent’s actions (mad hysteria) are proof of his political decline and defeat in more than one place in Africa, for he is operating in the following manner:

1. He visited Washington during this period to obtain arms to combat the Somali revolution in the occupied areas, a revolution which has shaken his regime politically and revealed his criminal tricks in more than one place. His visits were for the purpose of securing cooperation with the Pentagon to draw up a new plan to strike the liberation movements, to infiltrate them, then isolate them from the world, and abort them.
2. He made a number of attempts, foremost of which was the one to come to an agreement with one of the states on the Red Sea for a Joint visit with al-Numairi of the Sudan to visit Kenya and the drafting of a secret agreement between the governments of Khartoum, Addis Ababa, and Kenya, to contain the Somali and Eritrean revolutions through border agreements and understandings for the security of the borders between the two with the intent to paralyze the revolutions of Somali and Eritrea in the occupied areas.
3. For the first time in his withered reign he visited the occupied Somali area occupied Western Somali where he threatened to destroy and frustrate the desires of the people, a threat to destroy any who cooperated with the Somali revolution. He showed a hostile attitude of disdain for the rights of these people and their hopes for freedom.
4. He attempted to mislead and to lie that the problem is a border problem with the Somali Democratic Republic, confirming thereby that our people have no legal life nor right to honor and livelihood in their own independent country with its own identity, values, civilization, morals, and nationalism which differ from what this old man (agent) claims. He is trying to undertake military operations in the area on the one hand and to encircle the Somali Democratic Republic on the other.

Haile Selassie’s Crimes Against Our People, He Provides For Israeli Exploitation of Our Land

The Somali people in the occupied territories have numerous problems because of the Ethiopian occupation:

1. The Ethiopian army under the leadership of Israeli experts. and European mercenaries is destroying Somali villages and towns, burning farms, and looting valuables. It is using chemical and bacteriological warfare and internationally banned weapons against these peaceful and defenseless people. It uses napalm bombs, flattens villages with artillery and forbidden dumdum shells,¹ sprays bacteria and insecticides over farms and villages, and uses poison gas to destroy and terrorize the rebellious people in order to kill the spirit of revolution and of cooperation with the rebels under the leadership of the United Liberation Front of Western Somali.
2. The Ethiopian army is operating, throughout the occupied territory, under the allegation that it is facing troop concentrations of the Somali Republic on their artificial borders. By this stage play it carried out its barbaric, antagonistic crimes against the people of the occupied land. Among those crimes are the killing of women and children and the army’s forceful collection of blood through barbaric, Nazi-like methods to provide for Israeli wounded on the pretext of confronting an expected war with the Somali Republic.
3. The Ethiopian military authorities have imposed an Ethiopian identity card restriction on everyone in the area. Whoever does not carry the card is immediately executed without trial, legal convention, and charge. The goal is to Amharize the occupied area and to sap the nationalist identity of this defenseless people.
4. Every day the bodies of hundreds of martyrs and innocents are seen throughout the country hung in public squares or dumped in villages on the charge of cooperating with the rebels of the United Front. The goal of this is to terrorize, but the people, through strength of will, pay no heed to the regime’s terrorism and, in spite of its barbaric crimes, they have proven the magnificence of their bravery, which has driven the enemy out of his mind, for he is operating and destroying in a hysterical manner, an indication of his cowardice and fear at the anger of the people arising from their solidarity under the leadership of the United Liberation Front of Western Somali.

Our Resources Are In Israel’s Hands

The area has vast agricultural, animal, and petrochemical resources. Geological studies have proven the existence of large natural petrochemical deposits. There is iron, copper, uranium, silver, sulfur, coal, petroleum and gas. Timber is still available in the occupied territory. Therefore, Israel is cooperating with Haile Selassie to exploit it.

Their plundering is in full swing because of the nature of the common connection between the two gangs ruling in Addis Ababa and Tel Aviv. Israeli experts are making extensive studies of the area and a military land survey of it in the common interests of the two enemy gangs. The plunder of our natural resources is being done by Israel in such a way that it is considered a part of Israel’s economic life.

O fighters:

We urge all our rebel comrades to pay attention to this aspect. Because this conference is represented by the scholars, men and engineers of the Palestinian revolution, they are more versed in this aspect and in the role of the Israeli enemy.

O glorious conference:

To enclose our revolution in the information media and to isolate it from world and Arab public opinion is one of the aims of the reactionary, autocratic regime in Addis Ababa. Every day our people face misfortunes and butcheries at the hand of the barbaric military occupation which would shock humanity, regime led by the Israeli Jackals.

For the martyrs, the displaced, the orphans, the old men, and those who have been tortured; out of the cries from the prison cells of the despotic Haile Selassie regime which the fighters of this people have surrounded, we implore you to break the press restrictions and to conceal from those hopeless people everything that the Addis Ababa rulers are trying to impose.

Our cause has not been one of borders. Rather it is the cause of a people who have sworn that they will defend what they hold sacred no matter what the cost nor how long it takes. They will not spare blood and life for their holy cause, the complete liberation and unity of occupied Somalia.

The United Front, in this memorandum, is presenting these irrefutable facts about Ethiopia’s crimes. We hope you will find in yourselves the will to stand in solidarity with us and to consider this appeal of ours as a document presented to this conference. We thereby hope to have the voice of the revolution reach all free men in the world.

Long live the will of solidarity to liberate our sacred land from the atrocity of the occupation.

May the [word illegible] of the rebel Front for the peoples be united against the occupation and aggression.

Victory to you and to us.

The United Liberation Front

of Occupied Western Somali,

Baghdad

1. Dumdum refers to expanding bullets which are prohibited for use in war under international law ↩︎